Bush's Iraq War is a Financial Disaster

The U.S. won an inevitable military triumph, but political victory remains elusive

by Eric Margolis

WASHINGTON -- The famous words of King Pyrrhus of Epirus after the bloody
battle of Heraclea in 280 BC are as appropriate for America's conquest of
Iraq: "One more such victory and we are ruined."

The March, 2003 invasion of Iraq pitted the world's greatest military power
against the largely inoperative army of a small, dilapidated nation of only
17 million (deducting rebellious Kurds), crushed by 12 years of sanctions
and bombing. Thanks to total air superiority, invading U.S. forces achieved
a brilliant feat of logistics, racing from Kuwait to Northern Iraq in under
three weeks. The 15% of Iraq's army that stood and fought was pulverized by
massive, co-ordinated U.S. air strikes and artillery barrages. Urban
resistance failed to materialize.

The rout of Iraq's forces recalled another colonial war, the Dervish
Campaign of 1898. Gen. Kitchener led the imperial British Army far up the
Nile into Sudan where it met and massacred a primitive Islamic host at
Omdurman. Britain's quick-fire guns and artillery mowed down Dervish cavalry
and sword-waving "fuzzy-wuzzies" as murderously as U.S. precision munitions
vapourized Iraqi units.

U.S. air and ground forces in Iraq displayed superb technical, electronic,
logistic and combat prowess confirming they are two full military
generations ahead of nearly all other nations.

But as the great modern military thinker, Maj.-Gen J.F.C. Fuller, observed
40 years ago, the proper objective of war is not military victory but a
politically advantageous peace. While the U.S. won an inevitable military
victory against a nearly helpless Iraq, political victory so far remains
elusive.

Primary objectives

In my view, two primary objectives drove the U.S. invasion of Iraq: oil and its support for Israel.

By dominating these oil sources, the U.S. controls the economies of its main
commercial and potential military rivals. Control of the Muslim world's oil
is the principal pillar of America's world power.

The Pentagon plans three permanent major military bases in Iraq from which
powerful garrisons of U.S. air and ground forces, backed by mercenary native
troops, will police not just Iraq but the entire Mideast and guard the new
"imperial lifeline" of pipelines exporting oil from Central Asia and the
Arab world.

Other U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, linked
to bases in Bulgaria and Romania, will guard the new imperial route. . . .

Mini-states

The neo-cons achieved their objective: Iraq, once the Arab world's most
developed, industrialized nation, a bitter foe of Israel, was destroyed, and
will likely end up split into three weak mini-states.

Israel is a primary beneficiary of the Iraq war: a potential nuclear rival
was eliminated by the U.S. . . .

Occupying Iraq costs $9 billion monthly.

Pre-war neo-con plans to finance the occupation by plundering Iraq's oil
have been frustrated by sabotage. Congress estimates the overall cost of
"pacifying" and "rebuilding" Iraq for fiscal 2003 and 2004 at a staggering
$200 billion. . . .

Iraq lies in ruins. "Rebuilding Iraq" means paying for all the damage caused
by massive U.S. bombing and years of sanctions.

Puppet regime

In spite of rosy claims from the White House about handing sovereignty to
Iraqis, American troops will garrison Iraq for years to guard the oil fields
and maintain a "democratic" puppet regime in power in Baghdad that obeys
Washington's orders. . . .

The brazen arrogance and profound ignorance shown by the Bush administration
in its crusade against Iraq has turned the world against the United States.
Occupied Iraq is acting as a terrorism generator. For the next generation of
young Muslims, Iraq is becoming what Afghanistan was in the 1980s, a
rallying point to fight foreign occupation, battle imperialism and defend
the tattered honour of the Muslim world. Bush and his men have created
millions of new enemies. . . .

However, because of Iraq, much of the world now regards America itself as a
menacing, unstable threat.